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A formal ghostly visit

However Imhotep- Asclepios don’t seem to be the kind of ghost divinised or not who stayed calm and peaceful in the next world and who limited himself to be a very savant god. Moreover with all that he made in his life it is understandable that it would have been very difficult to force him to inactivity. He must have liked Tessalus very much, because after their meeting and this time without need of any help of intermediating priests he also appeared to the Roman doctor’s mother. By night his ghost resplendent and shining materialised himself in front of the poor lady.
Now to find himself alone in her bedroom in front of a luminescent ghost or god (it would not have made much difference) is not the best thing that could happen to an old matron. In her place many younger people would have had a stroke. Luckily Tessalus’ mother didn’t die and thus told what had happened to her specifying that when she saw Imhotep she was not asleep but not even awake. Her eyes were open and fixed, but her vision was confuse. The fact of this ghostly visit is reported in the Oxhyryncus papyri but the tale does not explain to us the reason of the spectral visit, nor what Imhotep ghost had to say to his new friend’s mother.


BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. CUMONT, L’Egypte des astrologues, Bruxelles 1937 Papiro di Oxyrh. XI, p. 225 e sgg.